What Is Cultural Diversity?
Cultural diversity, or multiculturalism, is based on the idea that cultural identities should not be discarded or ignored, but rather maintained and valued.
The Foundation of the Idea
The foundation of cultural diversity is the recognition that every culture and people has made a substantial contribution to our shared history. America's story was written by many hands: by Native nations whose civilizations long predate European contact, by Africans brought in bondage who built much of the nation's early wealth, by waves of immigrants from Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, and by women of every community whose work was for generations left out of the record.
Yet many people remain skeptical of multiculturalism, while others support it without a clear idea of how it should be taught. Too often we hand the task to schools under the catch-all phrase “multicultural education” and assume the job is done.
The Heritage-Month Problem
We assume that during February our children will learn about Black history, and in March about women's history. A particular month or week is dedicated to a certain group, as if this somehow acknowledges their full contribution to American history. But this approach can be as divisive as it is informative. If U.S. history is taught year-round, yet February is “Black History Month,” the logical implication is that African American history is overlooked during the rest of the school year — or that other communities are somehow set aside during February.
Heritage months do real good: they create occasions, focus attention, and give teachers a calendar hook. The history of Black History Month shows how powerful such an observance can be. The problem arises only when the month becomes a substitute for the curriculum instead of a gateway into it.
A Truly Astounding Diversity
The cultural diversity of the United States is truly astounding. Many different ethnic and cultural groups have contributed to the social, economic, and cultural values of our society — and this has been the case throughout our history, even though school books have not always taught that fact. Census data tell part of the story: the U.S. Census Bureau tracks ancestry and origin across hundreds of reported categories, and no single ancestry group constitutes anything close to a majority of Americans.
When we fully recognize that America is great because of the contributions of the many, we become more united in our common goals — and prouder, not less proud, of a shared American identity. Pluralism, on this view, is not a threat to national unity; it is the historical substance of it.
Consider a concrete example. A middle-school class studying the 1920s might read about the Harlem Renaissance in February, immigration quotas in a civics unit, and women's suffrage in March — three disconnected fragments. A culturally integrated approach teaches the same decade once, as a single American story in which Black artists, new immigrants, and newly enfranchised women all act on the same stage. Nothing is added to the curriculum; the existing material is simply allowed to belong together, the way it happened.
From Idea to Bookshelf
Ideas need infrastructure. A school that wants year-round multicultural study needs materials that treat each community's history with equal depth and editorial care — which is precisely what the multicultural reference series in our titles guide were designed to provide. Each set tells one community's American story through the same balanced structure of narrative, biography, documents, and bibliography, so that the shelf itself models the idea: many histories, equal standing, one nation.
For educators ready to put the idea into practice, our guides to multicultural education and multicultural lesson plans offer definitions from the field's leading scholars and practical classroom frameworks. Schools and libraries can explore the complete 31-volume collection as a year-round resource for learning the history and accomplishments of Americans from every background.